IndiGau, India’s first Cattle Genomic Chip

• 'IndiGau', India's first cattle genomic chip for the conservation of pure varieties of indigenous cattle breeds such as Gir, Kankrej, Sahiwal, Ongole etc., was launched by Ministry of Science & Technology.
• This chip was developed by the concerted efforts of scientists of the National Institute of Animal Biotechnology (NAIB), Hyderabad, an autonomous institution under the aegis of the Department of Biotechnology.

Key ponts:

• IndiGau is purely indigenous developed and the largest cattle chip of the world with 11,496 markers.
• To the use of this chip in generating phenotypic and genotypic correlations, NIAB has entered into a collaborative agreement with National Dairy Development Board (NDDB).
• NIAB and NDDB complement each other to undertake this research for generating information for low density SNP chip for any important trait detection, like high milk yield or heat tolerance etc.
• NIAB has also entered into a MoU with private industry to generate capability within India for designing and making our own SNP chips.

Significance of IndiGau:

• This chip will have practical utility in the Governments schemes to achieve the goal of conservation of our own breeds with better characters and help towards doubling of farmers’ income by 2022.
• This will eventually help in elite bull selection and improvement of productivity characters of Indian cattle.
• This technology can be further strengthened for bigger chips, making India self-reliant in this field.

SNP chips:

• SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) is a type of DNA microarray which is used to detect polymorphisms within a population.
• SNP chips are DNA microarrays that test genetic variation at many hundreds of thousands of specific locations across the genome.
• SNP chips have proven to be excellent for studying common genetic variation, which can be used to assess ancestry as well as predisposition to many complex multifactorial diseases.

National Institute of Animal Biotechnology:

• NIAB is an Indian autonomous research establishment and it was established by Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology in 2010.
• NIAB is aimed to harness novel and emerging biotechnologies and take up research in the cutting edge areas for improving animal health and productivity.
• Mission: Development of sustainable and globally competitive livestock industry through innovative technology.